


Coffee, Tea, and Loving/Supporting Your GF

by Capripian_Light_Of_My_Derse, ExistentialKnight



Category: Hiveswap, Homestuck
Genre: (humanswap?), Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Hiveswap and homestuck trolls are related by blood caste, Humanstuck, M/M, fluff mostly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-08 08:18:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14690121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capripian_Light_Of_My_Derse/pseuds/Capripian_Light_Of_My_Derse, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExistentialKnight/pseuds/ExistentialKnight
Summary: Elwurd works as a coffee artist at the Cobalt Scorpion with her cousins and hits on girls, but one day she bumps into...Tyzias, who never sleeps and lives on tea alone while trying to get through school while some weirdo keeps offering her coffee.Along the way, there are lots of funky characters straight out of sitcoms such as the Cobalt Cousins, the Teal Triumvirate, and the AWCA(albinos without a cool acronym).((Descriptionary skills? Not here! I promise it's better than it seems))





	Coffee, Tea, and Loving/Supporting Your GF

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the shitshow that is the run-of-the-mill coffee-shop AU the hiveswap fandom deserves, featuring Tyzwurd because I can.
> 
> This fic is dedicated to Jaye, or ExistentialKnight, who is both my editor and my moirail and deserves the world, go read her fics 'The Soundcloud Journal' and 'Alright, kids, time to befriend some demons' both on AO3.

Your name is Elwurd. Just Elwurd. You know people usually expect more than that, but those people can suck it. You are currently under employ with your cousins Ardata Carmia, Mallek Adalov, Remele Namaaq, and even the family star, Vriska Serket, at a coffee shop called the Cobalt Scorpion. You all have your quirks, and not just the typing kind either.

 

For instance, Ardata is a bonafide YouTube star/film student(though no one knows where). She uploads prank videos of her slipping spiders, ticks, and other gruesome bugs in people’s food, beds, and clothing. You guess there’s a market for that? It seems like it would cater to a bit of a weird demographic, but hey! You won’t judge. She can do her privacy-intruding, borderline violent filmography and get yelled at by her professors on her own time. Ain’t your problem.

 

What _is_ your problem is when she scares away girls you’re hitting on by putting bugs in their food. That’s why, as a patented Vriska imitator, you can pose as the so-called ‘8oss’ when you’re standing in another room. In fact, you think you’ll do so now.

 

You ‘go to the bathroom’ and yell from the other room in your Vriska voice, “Ardata, you better not be putting scorpions in the coffees of our lovely customers. As you know, that’s the sort of nasty stunt that could get a little bloodsucker fired. You wouldn’t want that, would you Ardy?”.

 

She makes a noise of subservience. Man, you love doing your Vriska voice. You get to be the boss for once. Usually it’s just people telling you to make them coffee, but when you’re Vriska you can be the one to make others make coffee for **you**. It’s a very liberating feeling.

 

“O-of course, Vriska. I’ll stop putting bugs in people’s food,” Ardata says. You know she won’t stop, but at least she’ll be fearful enough that she’ll cool down on it for long enough time to score you a girl or two.

 

You come back from your ‘bathroom break’ and promptly walk out of the employees only area and into the main shop. You have a relationship to save. You see the girl you were hitting on- Marsti, you think she was named? You approach her cautiously, with just the right hint of support and flirtation.

 

“You alright, gal?”,you ask, putting your hand on her shoulder and looking into her eyes. The ultimate butch/butch move. She glares at you through her weird goggles, pausing for a moment before erupting into a storm of anger.

 

“Look what you did!” she yells at you while gesturing to the centipede guts on her nice smock. Wait, didn’t she mention she was studying sanitation? Oh dear. She runs out of the coffee shop in a fit of rage, but you can’t focus on that right now because you’re too busy focusing on another coworker, the techie this time.

 

“What in the name of Ada ‘Badass Bitch’ Lovelace is going on here?”.

 

Ah, there he is, right on cue. Your tech helper, cousin, and fellow employee Mallek Adalov, complaining about one of the numerous old coffee machines. What a geek.

 

A geek? Yeah, he's more of a nerd. Mallek Adalov is the Prospit University computer expert, double-majoring in computer science and fashion technology. He works occasional shifts at the Scorpion whenever it suits him, but since he takes so many courses he's barely around. When he is he tends to be loud, abrasive, and detrimental to your flirting methods. For now you're going to take pleasure in your resemblance to the boss.

 

“Mallek! Why are you disrupting the customers with your loud, pesky cursing? I thought we agreed to be considerate. You wouldn't want your darling Lanque to see you all angry like this, would you?”, you shout angrily from another room.

 

Mallek responds quite quickly, “I know you're there, Elwurd! I can track your phone even when it's in bits! You should know that that basic binary shit doesn't work on me!” he yells even louder than before. You hate it when he uses tech puns instead of just regular expressions. Bitcoin? Binary? Really, Adalov? Ugh, even his name is a tech reference, he had it changed.

 

Well, you guess you'll have to come clean. You walk out from behind the large pile of conveniently shaped lamps and shoot Mallek your trademark finger guns.

 

“Look, buster, you need to stop calling me out. It's very easy to stop calling me out. Millions of people go their entire lives without calling me out. Only you can stop calling me out, because only _you_ are the one calling me out,” you quote, grinning as you reference that one vine or whatever. He grins back, and the small rift between you closes as it always does.

 

“Now that I’m back, I’ve got something actually important to do. REMELE!”, you yell, seeing your coworker, “Where the everloving, blue lipstick-bearing, _fuck_ is Vriska Serket?”.

 

She recoils a bit from your loud shouting but quickly leans back in and cups her hand to your ear.

 

She whispers very softly and you think you can hear something sounding similar to a “behind you”.

 

Oh tittyfuck.

 

“So what’d I say,” Vriska says to who you assume is nobody at all, “I said that all of my _employees_ had better stop _dicking around_ like a bunch of _amateurs_ , didn’t I?”, She laughs, “Oh _right_ , I _did_.”

 

Oh **_TITTYFUCK_ **. You snap to attention immediately and step back behind the counter, watching your boss carefully.

 

How the fuck did she even become the boss anyways? Vriska Serket is only a year older than you at 21 and she’s somehow running an entire coffee-shop. It probably has to do with her crazy big sister Aranea, who you’re almost completely sure is a dread pirate and also a member of the mafia. She apparently passed the shop down to Vriska while she went to support the family, though ‘the family’ sounds more and more like the mob every day. Vriska herself studies psychology at Prospit University and you get a lot of angry people like that wheelchair guy and that goth girl and the blind chick who she’s apparently dating in the shop looking for her. Apparently your lookalike has a lot of enemies. Speaking of your lookalike, she’s looking right at you.

 

“Hey! Elwurd!”, she says, leaning forward with her hands crossed.

 

“Uh. What, doll?”, you respond. You have a feeling that you’re in a huge heap of trouble.

 

“You see, Elwurd, to be employed in _my_ coffee shop you need to work. Get to it!”. Ugh, what a snob. She’s literally rubbing this position of power in your face! Such a bitch.

 

Well, even though she’s a bitch you still have to get to work. It’s time for you to do your favorite job- make flirty latte art.

 

You receive an order from a cute-looking girl at the register who says her name is Bronya. You decide to draw that nice symbol she has on her shirt that looks like a hook with a lot of lines, or maybe a dragon wing.

 

You finish up the latte with a flourish of edible green glitter marking the loop, and you’d have to say this is the best latte you’ve made in a week. You set it on the counter for a moment to fix up your hair, gotta give it to that babe while looking sharp. You turn back around to the counter and go to pick up your-wait. Where’s the coffee?

 

You notice Remele walking over to the lady to give her the coffee and while they exchange numbers you hope she can feel your gaze burning into her back with the fury of a thousand suns.

  


Remele has always been like this, to be honest. She’s from overseas, Hungary to be specific, and you think she is probably a part of Aranea’s creepy pirate enterprise along with studying creative writing at (read: slash fanfic). She speaks in that odd, sort of guttural voice Hungarians have and has a talent for two things: writing fanfiction and stealing your ideas. She loves to steal your things, like for instance the credit for that lovely latte you just made. Whenever you write love letters she takes them and ‘improves’ them by adding kissy faces. What a thief. Wants to call herself Robin Hood but really she’s just robbin’ yours.

 

You definitely feel robbed when you notice her sitting at a table with Bronya and flirting with such rampant lesbian energy you're pretty sure even that smelly enby that works at the Olive Garden across the street felt it. What a Remele move, edging in on your territory as the gay cousin.

 

And now another Remele move, the “ _Elwurd stop being so jealous and just get to the staff meeting already_ ”.At least that's what the bitch says while roughly shoving you against the countertop.

 

You decide to hurry to the meeting, if only because the last time you were late to a meeting Ardata tried to poison you with jellyfish venom. It did not turn out pretty.

 

While you skid into the decrepit staff room you see Mallek Naruto-running fast as he can towards the door, and he somehow manages to get out without any one of the flighty broads seeing him. He'll miss all the important information that is no doubt being given to you, but then again he's only here for the shitty machines so it probably doesn't concern him.

 

You spy Vriska out of the corner of your eye and also note the slightly larger and more imposing Serket behind her, Aranea in the flesh. Well, this sure is an occasion.

 

“So boss and mini-boss, what's the dealio with getting us in here?” you ask, propping your arms up against a dingy filing cabinet.

 

“The ‘dealio’,” Aranea begins, “is that you're all terrible. You're my family and I love you but you're all terrible employees. The shop has been in the red since last year and I haven't paid rent for the last eight months.”

 

Oh. Well, you thought it would have to do with the Marsti Disaster of this morning so this is better at least. That is until Aranea keeps talking.

 

“In addition, you're all very bad at what you do. Ardata, you put **bugs** in the food of **customers.** What the fuck? They buy our food expecting delicious coffee-shop meals and you give them arachnids,”

 

Remele, I hate to break it to you but you can't actually take Elwurd’s tips. That's illegal. You're a literal thief. Again, what the fuck?”

 

“Mallek, you aren't even here. Since you're no doubt wiretapping all of our devices I'm going to say it anyways. Your average shift length is ten minutes and you do nothing but hang out with friends and insult the shop. I'm gonna have to fire you if you keep being such a complete shitstain on the backside of this enterprise, “

 

And then there's you, Elwurd,” she says, turning back around to you, “You have a remarkable talent for hitting on every girl who comes in the shop and offering them discounts that you are not legally entitled to give. If you want to be a fluffy lesbian,  I suggest the Jaded Croissant Boulangerie-Patisserie. It's right down the street. You can go flirt with Maryam and Skalbi on your own time, not on my payroll,” she finishes.

 

“Now,” orders Vriska, “think of a way to stop losing money or you're fired.”

 

Wow, harsh. You start to brainstorm and start muttering to yourself as a way to retain the information.

 

“Hmmm… what do people like, they like thinking they got a lower price while also having fun with it but we like to make profits, what can I do with that, how about fun promotions Bob's Burgers style, that'd be good…”

 

You're cut off by Remele’s suggestion, “Hey unokatestver, what if we have fun daily promotions that inspire customers to buy them but are expensive enough to still net us a profit?".

 

What. A. Bitch. She might have just cost you your job but all that little punk could do was grin with her baby face working to her advantage.

 

Ardata, however, decides to use some basic human decency for the first time in her 20 years of life and enters the discussion.

 

“Listen, despite the obviousness that is Remele never being able to come up with  **anything**  original, it was Elwurd’s idea to promote the brand like this, so maybe give her a little credit,” she contributes whilst glaring at Remele.

 

You make a solid second of familial eye contact with Ardata and you know that she knows that you owe her a favor.

 

Vriska shrewdly decides to stay out of the grand network of favors and labors that the Cobalt Cousins have in favor of talking about the great idea you just had.

 

“Okay, Elly,” she begins even though she knows how much you hate that nickname, “If you want to make this idea a success then you have to run it completely as is our ways. If you can turn a profit during a week of promotions then you get a raise and will no longer be fired. Good luck, you'll need it.”

 

The others, while slightly disappointed that they didn't get this opportunity, seem overall okay with the situation and all nod a bit in agreement.

 

Now to go back to your house and plan some promotions. You hope you can do this, and hope even more that nothing will stand in your way of being a true family treasure in your own right- not because you sound like Vriska or belong to the mafia family but because of something you, Elwurd, did. Maybe this will be the day you're waiting for.

 

  



End file.
